


Asking for directions

by hope_calaris



Category: Franklin & Bash
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-11
Updated: 2012-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-29 08:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hope_calaris/pseuds/hope_calaris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter still knows all these things and he’s scared that he will be the only one to remember them for the rest of his life, treasuring something that has no meaning anymore. <i>(written for F&B Christmas Prompt Fest on lj)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Asking for directions

**Author's Note:**

> **Author’s notes:** OH. MY. GOODNESS. This fic behaved horribly. HORRIBLY. It was such an angst fest I didn’t know how to fix them at first, and Peter just developed more issues instead of being helpful. I don’t even know. I hope this is even remotely what the prompter wanted, and I’m really sorry if not. Thanks to Jen and Rei for the handholding, though. They’re in no way to blame for me writing most of this while being “slightly” hung over.  
>  **Disclaimer:** The moment unicorns are real, I make money with this.

He wants to tell him. He really wants to. He wants to hug him and hold him as close as possible. He wants to shut out the world and he wants to yell at it. He wants to make sure he’s okay and sink to his knees to thank God. He wants to cry and to smile and never stop.

There’s so much he wants to do, so many things he wants to say, that it keeps him frozen to the spot.

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t move. He only breathes.

“You must be Peter,” Jared had said. “Nice to meet you,” Jared had said.

And that’s … that’s okay, because it means that Jared is alive and that the car accident didn’t irrevocably ripped Peter’s life apart.

So, yes, his life is still intact. Jared is still in it. And he is thankful for that, he really is. Life without Jared doesn’t bear thinking about.

It’s just that it’s not _his_ Jared anymore.

\---

“Maybe you … you should take him with you.” The words feel angular and dry in his throat and nearly stuck before he gets them out. It feels like he’s spilling betrayal left and right, like it’s pouring out of him with everything else, hope, love, his future -- _their_ future.

“I can’t,” Leonard replies, his voice rough like gravel. And Peter wants to be angry, is furious for a moment or two, but then the energy leaves him again. He has nothing to spare when he’s barely holding himself together as it is. And it’s not the first time Leonard disappoints, he shouldn’t be surprised.

“You … ” he rubs a hand over his tired face. “He is your son,” he whispers, because it’s true. No amount of missed Christmases, untimely ended phone calls and broken promises will change that. Leonard is Jared’s dad. A shitty one most of the time, but still, it has to count for something. At least now, now when Peter doesn’t know how to put one step in front of the other, now when he feels like he’s missing a limb and is a walking cliché. He wants to sob, but he can’t, not in front of Leonard. He won’t give the bastard that.

“Yes, but you’re … ” he trails off and for the longest time Peter thinks he won’t continue. “You’re Peter. _You are his Peter_.”

And Peter tries really hard, but maybe a sob or two escape from his closed up throat. For once in his life Leonard is nice enough and doesn’t mention it.

“That doesn’t mean a thing right now,” Peter finally says, his voice tired and tiny.

“But it will mean something again. And believe me, it’s so tempting to take him with me right now, now that he thinks he actually likes me.” He laughs a bit, but it sounds desperate and so unhappy Peter’s heart hurts. “I’m not saying that seeing him smiling at me and actually meaning is something I want to throw away, but … it’s not right. Nothing here is right. And I don’t want him to wake up one morning and have yet another reason to hate me.”

“He doesn’t hate you, not really,” Peter can’t help but reply. Leonard just gives him a long look and shakes his head.

“Take him home, Peter,” he says. “He belongs with you.”

\---

“We live here,” Jared says and it’s more a question than a statement. Peter nods and closes the door behind them. “This … how can we afford this? Did we buy it as a ruin and worked at it DIY?” He snorts and winces when it aggravates his still lingering headache. “We don’t really look the type.”

His first instinct is to cross the short distance to Jared and hug him. He hates seeing Jared in pain and Jared likes to be hugged. But he doesn’t move, because this is not _his_ Jared. This is a Jared, but not his, and he doesn’t want to make him uncomfortable. He doesn’t want him to leave because he thinks Peter is a freak who needs touch like air, who doesn’t feel right when Jared suddenly has a concept of personal space again. “Yes … no, I mean -- ”

Jared looks at him with the same grin he usually has when Peter is making a fool of himself, and Peter wants to freeze this moment and never let go of it. “What now?”

“It’s yours.”

“Mine?” Jared turns around and takes in the space. “Did my dad give it to me?”

Jared doesn’t look at him, so Peter allows himself a second to close his eyes and count to ten. “No, it was your grandma. She passed away during our last year in Law School.”

“Oh … we’ve been to Law School together?”

“Yes.”

“Was I any good?”

“You were … brilliant.”

“I wish I could remember,” Jared says quietly.

“I can show you your room,” Peter says because he can’t hug Jared to make it better.

\---

There’s a knock on his door and he jumps a bit. He’s not used to knocking anymore. Jared never knocks and Pindar and Carmen never come into his room.

“It’s Jared,” a muffled voice comes through the door.

“Come in,” Peter says before he has a chance to wonder if he should grab a shirt or something. He doesn’t know if there are any rules to late night chats with an Amnesic. Jared stops for a moment when he sees Peter half-naked and self-consciously Peter drags the blanket up to his chest before Jared sits cross-legged down on his bed. It’s so familiar and so wrong at the same time that Peter is glad for the shadows he can hide in.

“Everything alright?” he asks.

“No.”

“What is it?”

“My room … it feels wrong.”

“Um … what do you mean exactly?” he asks and tries not to get too hopeful. This doesn’t have to mean a thing.

“Like … it’s not my room, you know?” Jared runs his left hand through his hair and looks as tired as Peter feels. “Which doesn’t make any sense. I don’t even remember it, but it still feels wrong. I shouldn’t have any feelings for it if I don’t even remember it.”

“Give it time,” Peter whispers, and he itches to reach out to touch Jared, to stroke his arm and tell him everything will be okay. But he doesn’t know if that’s true, and he never lied to Jared.

“It’s just … ” Jared flops down next to him, their feet crossing, and Peter doesn’t dare to move in case Jared remembers his personal boundaries again. “Nothing makes sense anymore.”

“I know,” Peter says. And he does know. Because not touching Jared, not kissing him is bad enough, but what really gets him, what he didn’t even think about to be scared of is something else: it’s the twenty years that are gone. Twenty years to get to know each other, twenty years to see the best and the worst of each other, and there not there anymore, not for Jared. Twenty years to know that Jared likes colored money, that he is secretly afraid of becoming as fragile as his mom, that he wrote really bad Quantum Leap fanfiction when he was thirteen. Peter still knows all these things and he’s scared that he will be the only one to remember them for the rest of his life, treasuring something that has no meaning anymore.

“Can I sleep here tonight?” Jared asks quietly and his whole body is tense, like even Peter doesn’t make any sense anymore. Peter moves a bit to the side and holds the blanket up for Jared to slip under. It feels natural and may be the first right thing he’s done in days. Jared’s body is warm next to his own, and he’d only need to stretch his fingers to touch him, but he stays put on his back and doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to scare Jared. He wants to protect him above all else, he wants to hide him in their house so he can never get into a car accident again, he wants a lot of things for which his Jared would ridicule and love him at the same time, but not this Jared. This Jared shuffles a bit around and finally turns so his face is to Peter. Peter can still see the cut above Jared’s left eye and he raises his hand to put his finger against it.

“Does it still hurt?” he whispers, tracing the bruise around Jared’s eye.

“No, yes … a bit,” Jared says and bites his lips. “Peter … ”

“Yes?”

“What aren’t you telling me?” And there’s so much uncertainty and fear in Jared’s eyes that Peter’s breath hitches for a moment. He’s never lied to Jared before, though.

“We are together,” he says slowly, his finger still caressing Jared’s skin and the words rolling of his tongue like a secret that doesn’t want to be released.

“Oh,” Jared says, and then “I’m sorry I don’t remember.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Peter tells him and draws his hand back. “Sleep, Jared.”

And for a moment it looks like Jared wants to say something, wants to tell him he remembers loving Peter as much as Peter remembers loving Jared, that he knows about all the places they’d sex and he remembers where they hide the bucket list with the places they still want to have sex, that he knows his relationship with his dad is shot to hell and that he’d never set a foot back into the home of his childhood if it weren’t for his mom and the holidays. But there is no spark of recognition in Jared’s eyes, only confusion and a blank slate where his life should be.

Eventually, he closes his eyes and falls asleep, his breath coming in that familiar pattern that Peter normally tells all is well with the world. For a moment he lets himself have that illusion and presses a soft kiss to Jared’s forehead. “I love you,” he mouthes against Jared’s skin before he scoots back and tries to sleep.

\---

“I’m gay, then?”

For a second or so Peter thinks about pretending to be still asleep, but then he thinks this wouldn’t be fair. He opens his eyes and props himself up on an elbow. “It’s complicated,” he says.

“How?” Jared’s hair is still tussled from bed and there’s a faint line on his right cheek from the pillow, and Peter feels something tugging at his heart to reach out and just touch him like he’s done a million times before.

“We never actually put a label on it,” he says because it’s the truth. Jared never was someone to concern himself with conventions anyway, and Peter’s family reacted to the news more in the line of ‘Wait, so you’re saying you two haven’t already for years … ?’ “I mean, we’ve both slept with women before, we _like_ women, it’s just … we like each other more.” And he winces when the words have left his mouth.

“So,” Jared hesitates for a moment, licking his lips, “You are the one? For me?”

“At least I was,” Peter replies softly and then he can’t stand it anymore. The utter lack of recognition in Jared’s eyes, the fear clutching his heart of being alone. He gets up and locks himself in the bathroom to shower. The warm water doesn’t really help, but at least nobody sees the tears streaming down his face.

He feels marginally better once he steps out of the bathroom and is surprised to see Jared sitting on his bed again. He appears to have showered and dressed as well, and there’s an odd determined look on his face.

“Help me remember,” Jared says.

 _Anything you want_ , Peter wants to say, but what actually comes out of his mouth is: “It doesn’t work that way.”

Jared rolls his eyes and huffs in frustration. “I know there’s no switch to make me remember, but we could try other stuff. You haven’t told me anything about us -- ”

“I told you about our life,” Peter interrupts him.

“Yeah, but the censored version, apparently. The version where we’re not madly in love with each other.”

Peter cringes at his words, it’s something he’d say and Jared would mock him for it. “We’re not -- ”

“Oh, now you want to tell me we are only fuck buddies? Is that it?” And there’s a sharpness in Jared’s voice that makes Peter take a step back. Jared sounds like Peter genuinely hurt his feelings and he tries to cover it. It’s a mechanism Peter recognizes from before the accident, like it’s a glimpse of his old Jared returning to him. He feels elated and terrified at the same time.

“No, no. It’s not … you’re right. We were madly in love, although you would have slapped me if I had formulated it that way,” Peter says and recognizes his mistakes too late.

“ … were?” Jared asks and seems to fold into himself. He exhales a shaky breath and stands up, all the while refusing to meet Peter’s eyes. “So you’re not even giving me -- _us_ \-- a chance, then. You think this isn’t worth fighting for, you think I’m not worth it.” And finally he looks at Peter, and his eyes are cold and unforgiving. “I’m sorry I can’t be the Jared you remember, I genuinely am, but I can’t stay here with you and your half-truths. I need to … I don’t know, to be honest, but I don’t think I can get better if I stay around you and your hopes for the other me.”

“Jared -- ”

“Don’t,” Jared cuts him off and leaves.

\---

Leonard calls him in the evening, which is basically insult added to injury.

“Explain to me why my son is currently preparing dinner with his mom in the kitchen and not ordering Chinese with you in the hole you call the mancave,” Leonard demands and only he can make his son being in his childhood home sound all kinds of wrong.

“It’s … complicated,” Peter replies and rubs his face. He doesn’t want to have this conversation with Leonard. In fact, he doesn’t want to have any kind of conversation; he wants to drown in beer instead.

“Bullshit,” Leonard says harshly. “And really, how sad is it that I need to call you about Jared? Usually it’s the other way round.”

Peter is tempted to just throw the phone away, Leonard and his attitude be damned, but he doesn’t. Leonard is the only connection he has left to Jared. “Is he … is he okay?”

“Of course not! Seriously, how did you pass the bar? He’s confused and hurt and won’t talk about it, so I bet it was you. Only you can make him walk around like he has nothing left in the world.”

And for all the bullshit Leonard has pulled in his life, Peter can’t find it in him to hate him right now. Because he’s right. And doesn’t that take the cake? Leonard being right about something in Jared’s life.

“So here is what’s going to happen,” Leonard tells him. “We’ll have dinner, and then you’ll show up and talk to him, and you’ll make this right. I don’t care if this Jared isn’t the one you spent the last twenty years with, if this isn’t the same person you got drunk and high with, and God knows how you two ever got through Law School, let alone scored a job with Infeld, but it’s still _Jared_ , my son, your _best friend_. And I’ll personally make your life a living hell if you don’t start to appreciate the fact that he’s still alive and here to get better. And even if he never remembers, then we’ll start to make new memories because he is _still here_. Understood?”

“Um … yes, sir.”

“Good. Otherwise I’d have had to tell you to never show your face anywhere near Jared.” And then Leonard hangs up on him.

\---

It’s cold and windy and Peter feels a bit silly, but also more hopeful and determined than he has in weeks. He clutches the worn cardboard box close to his chest to shield it from the harsh weather. It’s the most important thing he can think of that he owns at the moment. This and his memories of Jared, and it’s all he can offer. He just hopes it’s not too late and Jared will actually open the door to let him in. Peter doesn’t think he could live with Leonard being the sensible one in this scenario, not when it also means losing Jared.

“What are you doing here?” Jared asks when he finally opens the door. He’s wearing a beige sweater two sizes too big with penguins on the front. Peter knows that sweater, knows how soft the wool feels to the touch and how warm it is.

“Your grandma knitted that sweater for you. It was her last Christmas gift to you before she passed away. You only wear it when you feel especially lousy,” Peter says without really thinking about it.

“Excuse me?” Jared crosses his arms in front of his chest.

“It’s … I brought a box,” Peter says and holds it out for Jared to take.

“A … box?”

“Yes. With stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“Keepsakes -- about you, about us. I never told you about it.”

Jared doesn’t say anything for a long time, and Peter’s stomach does this weird queasy thing again, but finally Jared takes the box from his hands. He holds it very cautiously, as if he knows how much it means to Peter.

“My grandma knitted for me?” he asks, his voice barely more than a whisper.

“She did. She was a lovely old lady. And she made mismatched pair of socks for each of us each year.”

“So that’s why I only found oddly colored socks in one of my drawers,” Jared says and now there’s a small smile on his lips.

“Yes -- um, can I come in?”

For an answer Jared steps aside to let him through the door.

\---

 _The electricity bill is their first kiss.  It’s from January some odd years ago and they are fighting over how to pay for it. Peter wants to go back to working for a big firm and Jared predictably doesn’t want to hear anything about it. They spend the night apart, Peter drinks the world’s worst coffee in some diner in downtown LA sometime around midnight, and the next morning they are both so exhausted and anxious about the impending separation that it seems like the only plausible solution to admit that this is probably the worst idea ever. There is a constant stream of_ Don’tleavemeIdon’twanttogoWecanworkthisoutIneedyou _. And then they kiss._

“We couldn’t pay for the electricity?”

“We ate canned ravioli for three months straight,” Peter says with a fond smile.

“Eeew.”

“That’s about the same reaction we have to ravioli ever since.”

 _A mug without a handle is their first time. Peter kept the handle as well, but he never glued it back on. Some things, he thinks, don’t need to be fixed._

“I can’t believe we were that bad,” Jared says with big eyes and makes some gestures in Peter’s direction. “Look at you! How can you be bad in bed?”

“We were really, really awful, all limbs and no coordination.”

“And we broke the mug?”

“I think you did, actually. It fell off the nightstand.”

“C’mon, you’re only blaming me because I don’t remember otherwise.”

“Of course. There must be something in it for me in all of this,” Peter replies, but he makes sure that his words are light and teasing, and Jared hits him with a pillow.

 _The bill for an Italian restaurant stands for Peter’s horribly misguided attempt at romance, which only makes Jared giggle like a mad men and ends with them ordering beer in their favorite diner after sharing a chocolate sundae. A picture of Marissa Tomei with accompanying signature is Jared’s first anniversary gift for Peter._

“She’s the only one I’d share you with -- I really wrote that on the backside?” Jared asks with a frown and looks disgusted with himself. Peter grins like a fool, because he’s not the only one hopelessly sappy when it comes to their relationship.

“You did -- but no worries, you don’t need to share,” he says easily and realizes a moment too late that this implies more than it should. An obligation, a promise whispered by other people, and maybe it’s null and void now.

“Don’t look at me like this,” Jared says suddenly, and then he moves over from where he leaned against his bed, and it’s the first time since the accident that he willingly touches Peter. It feels so good and so _right_ Peter nearly melts into him.

“I’m not -- ”

“Yes, you are. You look at me like I’m going to vanish any second. Like I will decide that all of this doesn’t interest me and maybe I’m better off in Australia -- ”

“You’ve been to Australia,” Peter interrupts him.

“Yes, I know, and I didn’t like it because you weren’t -- ”

They realize what he’s saying at the same moment. Peter’s head snaps up and Jared’s grip on Peter’s shoulder tightens.

“You … you remember?” Peter asks in a whisper and swallows drily.

“I … I do, I think I do. At least some of it. The heat, the dust, you not being there.” He frowns. “Why weren’t you there?”

“We fought, before, about where to work after Law School.”

“Oh … yes, that makes sense,” Jared says and somehow maneuvers so that he’s leaning against Peter’s shoulder. “I don’t really get along with my dad, do I?” he suddenly asks and throws Peter for a loop.

“Um … ”

“The truth, remember?”

“Yes. I mean, yes, you and your dad … that’s complicated.”

“Thought so … he seems nice now, though.”

“He’s … better, now. It’s like a second chance for him, I think,” Peter says truthfully. He really believes that Leonard tries his hardest to be a good father for Jared now. He’s still a condescending asshole, but at least this time Peter doesn’t actively doubt his love for Jared.

“Second chance,” Jared murmurs and there’s a slight hesitation in his voice. “You’re having weird thoughts about giving us a second chance, am I right? Because you think this is me clinging to the only people who’d care about what happens to me, that I’m only around because I think it’s what you want.”

Peter is dumbfounded for a long moment. Only Jared would clue this together without having Peter even utter a single word, and only Jared would outright call him out on this bullshit. He doesn’t know what to say. Jared rolls his eyes and snips his fingers against Peter’s Jared.

“Only because I’m the short on in this relationship doesn’t automatically mean that I’m the damsel in distress who can’t think for himself. I _want_ to know you. I think I _do_ know you. And to be honest, storming out the cave felt at the same time oddly familiar and horrible. I don’t want to do it again. It felt wrong.” Jared takes a deep breath and looks down at the carpet. “But you … being _with_ you, that feels right in a way I can’t even begin to explain. So, please, don’t wish me away.”

“I’d never do that,” Peter says with a hoarse voice and means it. It’s the undeniable, never changing truth. He won’t leave Jared, no chance in hell, not for money and not for Marissa Tomei. It’s kind of embarrassing that he needed Leonard to remind him of this.

“Good to know,” Jared says and smiles at him, and it’s the smile Peter remembers, the one that’s reserved for him and when everything is right with the world, and he feels his heart leap in his chest.

And then they kiss, and it’s familiar and new, and before Peter’s brain shuts down completely he thinks he needs to start a new box for his keepsakes.

 _\- fin_


End file.
